Where does the time go?
When a baby is born, sleep deprivation is inevitable. A baby is so demanding, and the work around the house multiplies so quickly, that time for sleep has to diminish to make time for everything else that needs attention. Slowly, as the child ages, the parent’s time for sleep returns to normal range. With three children in my house, I’m hoping this time to return to normal sleeping time will occur sometime within the next ten years, because I have quite the sleep deficit to catch up on before I die.
I finished my chores last night after the kids went to bed. Bedtime used to be 9:30. Now I’m lucky if the lights are off and no one is screaming at 10:00. There’s a half-hour less that I get to sleep before I can even muster the courage to tackle the night’s chores instead of leaving them for tomorrow.
Last night’s chores involved washing the dishes. I had to run the dishwasher before morning, or else the kids would be eating breakfast from dirty dishes, and if they didn’t enjoy beanie weenie when it was fresh, I doubt they’d like after it dried onto their trays.
By 10:30, the dishwasher was whirring the dishes clean, and my feet were telling me the next chore. Earlier that night, the kids drug a not-quite-empty carton of frozen lemonade concentrate from the trash, spilling drops of naturally and artificially flavored lemon water supersaturated with various sugars throughout the floor. The insulin-tastic levels of sugar in the drops left the floor with that movie theater feel. While it was exciting not knowing if I could pull my shoe off the floor after my next step, I grabbed the mop and bucket to clean the floors to a satisfactory level of grime. I could’ve spot-cleaned the floors, mopping up just the sticky parts and leaving the filthy parts, but as long as I had the bucket out and filled with its semi-annual dose of hot mop water, I went ahead and cleaned the entire room.
By 11:15, I was at the computer, blogging and doing serious research on various sports-related issues, like whether the Rangers are worse than the Cubs.* I worked as fast as my fading short-term memory allowed, and by 12:15 I was ready to fall asleep for hopefully seven solid hours.
On the way to bed, I found one final, little chore. I’d been meaning to plug the lights on our bedroom aquarium into a timer for a couple weeks. That would turn the lights on and off automatically, giving my brain one less chore to track. I noticed the timer sitting on the counter, and figured I’d tackle it before the kids hid it.
I tip toed into the bedroom where my wife was sleeping angelically, and walked to the aquarium. Everything was plugged into a power strip, and I needed to rearrange the plugs to make room for the timer. I unplugged the filter and heater, and plugged everything back in to optimize space.
The filter started buzzing. It wasn’t horribly loud, but maybe loud enough to disturb my sleep. I played with it for a few minutes to reduce the noise with no luck, so I unplugged it for a quick clean.
When I plugged the filter back in, it started grinding and buzzing loud enough to alarm the dog in the next room, who had dozed off about the time I had hoped to make it to bed. I frantically played with it to quiet it, but nothing could soften the grinding that led my wife to angelically turn the light on so I could see what I was doing. The noise finally abated, although at that point the filter had quit working completely.
I spent the next several minutes working on it, cleaning it, playing with it, cussing at it, hoping to limp it through until morning. Nothing worked, and I finally collapsed into bed with the fish at the mercy of whatever bacteria were living in the water. I was afraid to look at the clock; I knew the first digit would be a one, but I hoped the next character would be a two. When I glanced at the clock, I saw a colon following the one. I dozed off for the night hoping for six solid hours of sleep.
When I heard Abbie banging around her room and saw daylight streaming through the windows, I looked at the clock. It said 6:00. Maybe I’ll be able to nap during the day when the boys start preschool in another two years.
* Last night? Yes. Tonight? Not so much.
I finished my chores last night after the kids went to bed. Bedtime used to be 9:30. Now I’m lucky if the lights are off and no one is screaming at 10:00. There’s a half-hour less that I get to sleep before I can even muster the courage to tackle the night’s chores instead of leaving them for tomorrow.
Last night’s chores involved washing the dishes. I had to run the dishwasher before morning, or else the kids would be eating breakfast from dirty dishes, and if they didn’t enjoy beanie weenie when it was fresh, I doubt they’d like after it dried onto their trays.
By 10:30, the dishwasher was whirring the dishes clean, and my feet were telling me the next chore. Earlier that night, the kids drug a not-quite-empty carton of frozen lemonade concentrate from the trash, spilling drops of naturally and artificially flavored lemon water supersaturated with various sugars throughout the floor. The insulin-tastic levels of sugar in the drops left the floor with that movie theater feel. While it was exciting not knowing if I could pull my shoe off the floor after my next step, I grabbed the mop and bucket to clean the floors to a satisfactory level of grime. I could’ve spot-cleaned the floors, mopping up just the sticky parts and leaving the filthy parts, but as long as I had the bucket out and filled with its semi-annual dose of hot mop water, I went ahead and cleaned the entire room.
By 11:15, I was at the computer, blogging and doing serious research on various sports-related issues, like whether the Rangers are worse than the Cubs.* I worked as fast as my fading short-term memory allowed, and by 12:15 I was ready to fall asleep for hopefully seven solid hours.
On the way to bed, I found one final, little chore. I’d been meaning to plug the lights on our bedroom aquarium into a timer for a couple weeks. That would turn the lights on and off automatically, giving my brain one less chore to track. I noticed the timer sitting on the counter, and figured I’d tackle it before the kids hid it.
I tip toed into the bedroom where my wife was sleeping angelically, and walked to the aquarium. Everything was plugged into a power strip, and I needed to rearrange the plugs to make room for the timer. I unplugged the filter and heater, and plugged everything back in to optimize space.
The filter started buzzing. It wasn’t horribly loud, but maybe loud enough to disturb my sleep. I played with it for a few minutes to reduce the noise with no luck, so I unplugged it for a quick clean.
When I plugged the filter back in, it started grinding and buzzing loud enough to alarm the dog in the next room, who had dozed off about the time I had hoped to make it to bed. I frantically played with it to quiet it, but nothing could soften the grinding that led my wife to angelically turn the light on so I could see what I was doing. The noise finally abated, although at that point the filter had quit working completely.
I spent the next several minutes working on it, cleaning it, playing with it, cussing at it, hoping to limp it through until morning. Nothing worked, and I finally collapsed into bed with the fish at the mercy of whatever bacteria were living in the water. I was afraid to look at the clock; I knew the first digit would be a one, but I hoped the next character would be a two. When I glanced at the clock, I saw a colon following the one. I dozed off for the night hoping for six solid hours of sleep.
When I heard Abbie banging around her room and saw daylight streaming through the windows, I looked at the clock. It said 6:00. Maybe I’ll be able to nap during the day when the boys start preschool in another two years.
* Last night? Yes. Tonight? Not so much.
posted by Matt at
11:52 PM
2 Comments:
Finn let us sleep for 3 hours straight last night. Good job little man!
By
Anonymous, at 8:36 AM
I should've known better than to complain about sleep deprivation with the mother of newborn reading :)
By
Matt, at 11:26 PM
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